AFP – Gaza’s civil defence agency said Wednesday an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter killed five people, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
“Five martyrs and a number of wounded were recovered after the occupation targeted Ibn Al-Haytam School in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City,” the agency said in a statement.
The Israeli military said the air force “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists” in a compound that “previously served as the ‘Ibn Al-Haytam’ school in the area of Gaza City”.
The military’s statement said Hamas fighters used the school “to plan and carry out terrorist activities against (Israeli) troops and the State of Israel”.
The military did not provide a death toll but said “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence”.
It is the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced Gazans.
On Saturday the civil defence agency said five were killed in a strike on Gaza City’s Shuhada al-Zeitun School, which the military said was also used by Hamas militants.
Another strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where many thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the ongoing war, which was triggered by Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.
At least 41,272 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
